Wisconsin native, conservative critic of everything.
"Once abolish the God, and the government becomes the God." ---G K Chesterton
"The only objective of Liberty is Life" --G K Chesterton
"Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions" --G K Chesterton
"A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition." -- Rudyard Kipling

Friday, February 22, 2013

ObozoCare: No Spouse for YOU!!!

Another effect of the Box of Chocolates: if you're married, he/she will be dropped by your employer.

Companies have a new solution to rising health-insurance costs: Break up their employees’ marriages.

By denying coverage to spouses, employers not only save the annual
premiums, but also the new fees that went into effect as part of the
Affordable Care Act. This year, companies have to pay $1 or $2 “per
life” covered on its plans, a sum that jumps to $65 in 2014. And health
law guidelines proposed recently mandate coverage of employees’
dependent children (up to age 26), but husbands and wives are optional. “

...These “spousal carve-outs,” or “working spouse
provisions,” generally prohibit only people who could get coverage
through their own job from enrolling in their spouse’s plan.
Such exclusions barely existed three years ago, but experts expect an
increasing number of employers to adopt them: “That’s the next step,”
Darling says. HMS, a company that audits plans for employers, estimates
that nearly a third of companies might have such policies now. Holdouts
say they feel under pressure to follow suit.

And--when ObozoCare goes live next year?

...experts say more firms are likely to drop spouses altogether, whether
they work or not—especially when the new federal health-care exchanges
open in 2014, providing an alternative for spouses left out in the cold.
“When there’s a place for people to go, employers won’t feel as
beholden or compelled to cover the spouse,” says Joan Smyth, an employee
benefits consultant with Mercer.